Although I'm a huge Tom Hanks' fan, there's no denying that "Inferno" has a 'been there, seen that' feel to it. Direct Ron Howard has created an adequate pursuit thriller based on the Dan Brown novel of the same name. The action begins in a Florence hospital, where Harvard professor Robert Langdon (Hanks) awakes with a wound to his head and no memory of what happened. Bilingual physician Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones) conveniently happens to know all about the distinguished art historian and symbolist Langdon. The plot heats up quickly when a female Italian police office shoots an orderly, intent on getting to Langdon. The doctor quickly spirits Langdon out of the hospital...and the chase is on. The rest of the film deals with a mysterious artifact and figuring out the clues relating to Dante's epic Hell-envisioning poem. The future of the planet is at stake (of course).
Howard, coming off the unfortunate In the Heart of the Sea, delivers a competent popcorn-selling flick. But the premise of the whole thing is shaky. Why does our villain, an intense Ben Foster as billionaire biologist Bertrand Zobrist, not unleash his plague (to fix our over population problem) at the start of this whole thing, instead of setting up a complex time-delayed search for clues? Anagrams are solved and Dante's death mask plays a part as agents of the World Health Organization and other bad guys chase them from Italy to Turkey. The cinematography is beautiful as we see Italy's Palazzo Vecchio and Boboli Gardens and Turkey's underground cisterns. "Inferno" is diverting if you have an afternoon free. Otherwise, I'd wait for cable.
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